Party On: Celebrating with a Baby Shower

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By Jeana Lee Tahnk

Planning a baby shower, whether your own or for someone else, is such a fun activity. There are so
many amazing online resources for baby shower idea these days - plenty
more than when I had my first one - and so many fun gift ideas such as
those ingenious diaper cakes, adorable baby shoes and onesies with cute
little sayings. Pinterest alone will give you more inspiration than you'd ever need.

Planning my first shower consisted of my sister, my husband and I
flipping through lots of magazines, ripping out pages to come up with
ideas. Like many baby showers these days that invite both genders, I
also wanted it to be more of a gathering of friends than an official
baby shower so the whole women-only rule was not in effect. A
new baby should be celebrated by everyone and ours was a good excuse to
catch up with friends, eat good food and celebrate the baby.

Speaking of food, the hard and fast rule for any shower - or any
event for that matter - is make sure you have more than enough to feed
the hungry masses. My shower food choice just happened to be Southern
food, a nod to North Carolina, where we had just moved from. BBQ
chicken, slaw, ribs, corn bread and baked beans filled those chafing
dishes, satisfying our guests and, more importantly, the pregnant woman.

And because I wanted it to be more like a regular party, I broke other baby shower rules and forwent the party games (gasp!).
Nor did I open gifts in front of the guests - I've been at baby showers
where the gift-opening lasted two hours, and people definitely start to
lose interest after the 11th adorable outfit. But you will get your
fair share of adorable outfits, ones that will make you so excited to
meet your little one. Other welcomed gifts are necessities like diapers
and wipes, of course, and any other item that other parents have come to
rely on themselves, whether it's a specific brand of blankets or
teething toy that you wouldn't otherwise know about.

To have some semblance of it being a baby shower, I did have a couple
of stations set up where people could suggest names or decorate
onesies. We decorated with a few baby pictures of my husband and me, and
included little candy baby shoes on the cupcakes. A picture of a baby
rattle adorned the favor bags.

A baby shower is really your way to celebrate the momentous life
experience of having a baby. Whether you want to have an all-chocolate
dessert bar, open all the presents right when guests get there or have
huge amounts of fried chicken, the choice is yours. With everything you
go through during the pregnancy, you should have at least one day to totally indulge your every whim. Mine just happened to be corn bread, and lots of it.

Huggies wipes and diapers are a MUST in my house! It was love at first use! I have been faithful to huggies since my first son (seven years ago) and we will continue to be with my youngest son...! We love you huggies!!! ♡♡♡

I love these diapers!!!!! I tried pampers on my daughter but she would pee through them and then tried luvs and found out she is allergic to them. Then I tried theses out and they work the best with her. She sleeps through the night in one and doesn't pee though it.